Year: 2013

With the school year on its way back, I want to share some of the tech books I use in my classroom. I think you’ll enjoy them also. This one is a two-volume all-in-one for grades K-8. It includes a mixture of lessons that cover different skills, different subjects. Hope you like it!

55 Technology Projects for the Digital Classroom: Everything you need to integrate computers into K-8 classes

by Jacqui Murray

Volume I is 219 pages and Volume II 235 pages, making this series an all-in-one K-8 toolkit for the lab specialist, classroom teacher and homeschooler, with a years-worth of simple-to-follow projects for K-8. Integrate technology into language arts, geography, history, problem solving, research skills, and science lesson plans and units of inquiry using teacher resources that meet NETS-S national guidelines and many state standards. The fifty-five projects are categorized by subject, program (software), and skill (grade) level. Each project includes standards met in three areas (higher-order thinking, technology-specific, and NETS-S), software required, time involved, suggested experience level, subject area supported, tech jargon, step-by-step lessons, extensions for deeper exploration, troubleshooting tips and project examples including reproducibles. Tech programs used are KidPix, all MS productivity software, Google Earth, typing software and online sites, email, Web 2.0 tools (blogs, wikis, internet start pages, social bookmarking and photo storage), Photoshop and Celestia. Also included is an Appendix of over 200 age-appropriate child-friendly websites. Skills taught include collaboration, communication, critical thinking, problem solving, decision making, creativity, digital citizenship, information fluency, presentation, and technology concepts. In short, it’s everything you’d need to successfully integrate technology into the twenty-first century classroom.

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Dear Otto is an occasional column where I answer questions I get from readers about teaching tech. If you have a question, please complete the form below and I’ll answer it here. For your privacy, I use only first names.

Here’s a great question I got from Lani :

I am trying to set up my curriculum map for 2013-14, for preK-8. This is the first year I will be actually using the lab f/t…I hope, along with library skills. I purchased several of the structured learning books & your blog has been amazing! My question, you mentioned that keyboarding is part of the CC…45wpm minimum, by end of 8th grade. I have looked at the CC State Standards, but cannot find this or any tech standards. Can you share where this is? I have new administration coming & would like to be prepared! Thank you.

If you liked the last Humor that Inspires (Part 1 and Part 2), here are more to kick-start your day:

1. “A man can’t be too careful in the choice of his enemies.”
   – Oscar Wilde (1854-1900)
2. “Forgive your enemies, but never forget their names.”
   – John F. Kennedy (1917-1963)
3. “Logic is in the eye of the logician.”
   – Gloria Steinem
4. “No one can earn a million dollars honestly.”
   – William Jennings Bryan (1860-1925)
5. “Everything has been figured out, except how to live.”
   – Jean-Paul Sartre (1905-1980)
6. “Well-timed silence hath more eloquence than speech.”
   – Martin Fraquhar Tupper
7. “Thank you for sending me a copy of your book – I’ll waste no time reading it.”
   – Moses Hadas (1900-1966)
8. “From the moment I picked your book up until I laid it down I was convulsed with laughter. Some day I intend reading it.”
   – Groucho Marx (1895-1977)
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These are my 120 favorite kindergarten websites. I sprinkle them in throughout the year, adding several each week to the class internet start page, deleting others. I make sure I have 3-4 each week that integrate with classroom inquiry, 3-4 that deal with technology skills and a few that simply excite students about tech.

Here’s the list (check here for updated links):

1. Aesop Fables
2. Aesop Fables—no ads
3. Alphabet Animals
4. Alphabet Doors
5. Animal Games
6. Animal Games II
7. Animal Homes II
8. Audio stories
9. Barnaby and Bellinda Bear
10. (more…)

Cheryl Lyman has 12 years experience teaching K-12 computer science, most recently at McDonald Elementary in Pennsylvania as Instructional Technology Specialist. Awards include Classrooms of the Future Coach, Ed Tech Leader of the Year Semifinalist, PA Keystone Technology Integrator, PA State Peer Reviewer, and Pennsylvania Teacher of the Year Semi-finalist. We look forward to her knowledgeable insights in curriculum development and technology integration into the classroom.

The Importance of Literacy In K-5 Classrooms

I recently completed a literacy course through the University of Pennsylvania. This course was predominately geared towards secondary classes. However, it provided me with insight to the importance of literacy at a very early age and how I have the power to promote literacy as a teacher of technology.

By third grade, students can begin to lose interest in literacy. In some cases, that interest will never be sparked again. Many schools stop teaching reading in middle school at a time when higher level literacy skills are just beginning to emerge. It is assumed that if you can sound a word, you can read and reading skills and strategies are ignored. Is it no wonder that our student achievement scores have not improved in the last thirty years?

As teachers who embrace the use of technology in our classrooms, we have the power to keep the literacy embers burning and possibly ignite them for a lifetime for our students. Each day we have the opportunity to use technology with our students to keep them engaged in reading and writing. Keep in mind that we can be very creative in how we use our tools so students are immersed in literacy and they don’t even know it!

We can help students to annotate passages, take notes, look up words in online dictionaries they do not understand, develop creative thinking and problem solving skills –the list is endless for us to show our students how literacy will open doors for them.

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A few weeks ago, I polled you-all about your interest in online training. The results were mixed. Setting aside the obvious reason that online classes are much more affordable for both offeror and offeree, here are some of the comments I got (I’ve summarized):

For

• students can attend class from a car, their home, a library, while they’re waiting for their sister to finish ballet.
• classes are flexible–adaptable to student schedules
• online classes allow non-verbal students to participate fully with writing, drawing, and other non-audio approaches. This is a huge plus if the student is shy, easily intimidated and/or distracted by others
• class members in online classes are highly diversified, offering an opportunity for students to learn about different cultures, attitudes, and approaches to learning
• classes are self-paced–students move exactly as quickly or slowly as they want (with the fast forward and rewind)
• no distractions–students sit down and go to work without the chatter that usually starts a class, the goofing off that often distracts a lesson, and then interference from other students who don’t or won’t get whatever is included in the lesson
• no commuting, which means no traffic jams, no school house parking lots, less money spent on cars/gas/maintenance
• prepares students for future education in high schools and colleges
• content is managed through the online course framework, which means students can go back to review

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As a working technology teacher, I get hundreds of questions from parents about their home computers, how to do stuff, how to solve problems. Each Tuesday, I’ll share one of those with you. They’re always brief and always focused. Enjoy!

Q: I’m teaching my students to create a book report with a cover page. what’s the easiest way to get the cover on the first page and the report on the second?

A: Students as young as 2nd grade can learn to force a new page with Ctrl+enter. I have them create the cover page during one class and add the Ctrl+enter for the new page. That way, students can type the book report without my help–even on classroom computers.

To get the complete list of Tech Tips, click here.

To ask a question, fill out this form:

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Dear Otto is an occasional column where I answer questions I get from readers about teaching tech. If you have a question, please complete the form below and I’ll answer it here. For your privacy, I use only first names.

Here’s a great question I got from Brenda:

I’ve been teaching 5th grade for 8 years, but next year will be my first year teaching as the technology specialist for 3rd-5th grades. I purchased your lesson books for these grades and am just beginning to go through them to start mapping out my curriculum. It looks like we will have a change in our specialist schedule however, so I am wondering if you have some advise on how to best structure my class in order to teach the lessons as well as focus on keyboarding skills in a shortened class time. Instead of seeing my students once every 6 days for 45 minutes, I will see them every 3 days for 25 minutes. What would you recommend? Any input you could offer would be greatly appreciated. Thanks for the wealth of information and resources the website provides to those of us in these teaching positions!

Here are 50 animal websites for grades K-5, everything from Dinosaurs to the wildly popular Wolfquest (click here for updates):

1. 3D Toad—3D science study
2. Adaptations—game
3. Animal Adaptations
4. Animal games
5. Animal Games II
6. Animal games II
7. Animal Games III
8. Animal Habitats
9. Animal homes
10. Animal homes
11. Animal Homes II
12. Animal Homes III
13. Animal puzzle games–cool
14. Animals
15. Animals—San Diego Zoo Videos
16. Barnaby and Bellinda Bear
17. Bembo’s Zoo
18. Build a habitat
19. Build a habitat II
20. Butterfies and habitats
21. Classify animals
22. Cockroach—virtual
23. Dino collection
24. Dino Fossils then and now
25. Dino Games
26. Dino Games II
27. Dinosaurs
28. Dinosaurs II
29. Dinosaurs IV
30. Dinosaurs V
31. Dinosaurs VI
32. Endangered species collection
33. Food chain
34. Food Chains
35. Frog habitat
36. Google Earth—African Animals
37. Google Earth—endangered animals
38. Habitat Game
39. Habitats—create one
40. Habitats—match them
41. Life Cycles
42. Life—the Game–colorful
43. Ocean Currents—video from NASA
44. Ocean Safari
45. Ocean Tracks
46. Video Safari
47. Virtual Cockroach
48. Virtual Farm
49. Virtual Zoo
50. Wolfquest—simulation–DL

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It’s America’s birthday and I’m celebrating. What I write today will be… anything I want–gibberish, a short story, guest articles on crazy topics. I have no idea. My son’s in Kuwait protecting America’s distant shores. My daughter’s in San Diego preparing her LPD for some future battle. I’m here, thanking both of them and every other service member who accepted the calling to protect our nation’s freedoms.

God be with all of you.

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